If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

The debt was NOT caused by Grandma's cashing her check... it was CONGRESS taking the money behind that check before she could cash it!

And while I do not like the expansion of the food stamp program in recent years, I will not begrudge those families that legitimately NEED them to get food for their tables (as opposed to those that buy beer and lotto tickets).

As for the rest of that Jessie poster, I would edit it to read: It was caused by centuries of criminally reckless political greed, International wars without reparations (indeed, after we won the wars, we spent yet additional monies to rebuild those foreign lands!), and countless unfunded giveaways to corporations based upon broken promises and faulty logic.

Social Order at the expense of Liberty is hardly a bargain - Marquis de Sade

We should end Medicare Part D and let everyone over 65 die of natural causes. Good job Jesse Ventura! Of course most won't die right away and will needs years and years of Medicare Part B benefits in place of the Part D.

This week’s credit check: A record 43.6 million Americans are using food stamps. JPMorgan’s segment that makes food stamp debit cards made $5.47 billion in net revenue in 2010.

You might think that if you’re on food stamps, big banks won’t be very interested in you. What could they possibly want with someone who’s struggling just to put food on the table? But it turns out that you’re actually part of a profitable business for big bank JPMorgan. While the money to pay for the stamps comes from the government, the technology to access it lies in private hands. Food stamps used to be literally stamps — that is, pieces of paper — but in this day and age paper is so old fashioned. Now you get your food stamps with a debit card, and JPMorgan knows all about creating plastic credit products.

As the head of this division at JPMorgan, Christopher Paton, told Bloomberg, “They act and feel very much like a debit card. A lot of stores increasingly take food stamps.” What convenience! And Paton points out that his bank is the largest processor of food stamps in the country. These are boom times for such services — a new report from the US Department of Agriculture reports that 43.6 million Americans are now using food stamps, nearly 14% of the population, which is a record number. Paton notes this trend himself: “Volumes have gone through the roof in the last couple of years,” he says. “This business is a very important business to JPMorgan in terms of its size and scale.” And the numbers bear him out. According to the company’s most recent quarterly filing with the SEC, the Treasury & Securities Services segment, which is the division that includes the food stamp business, was up 2% in the last three months of last quarter and brought in $5.47 billion in net revenue for most of 2010....

Every time an American signs up for food stamps in one of 23 states, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) adds to its revenue stream.

That because JPMorgan Chase contracts to operate as the processor of the Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards in those states. JPMorgan earns a fee for each recipient, ranging from 31 cents to $2.30, depending on the state, every month for the term of the contract.

JPMorgan's seven-year Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, the official name for the federal food stamp program) contract with New York state, for example, brought in more than $126 million of revenue to the big bank.

Florida has paid JPMorgan more than $90 million since 2007. Pennsylvania's seven-year contract exceeded $112 million.